When it comes to recruiting for your startup, whilst it’s important to hire people with the right skills and experience, hiring based on personality can be often even more effective. A candidate’s personality traits can be a great way of determining how well they would fit into your team and how they would impact and ideally complement your startup culture.
So why do you need curious personalities on your team?
1 Their creativity and innovation
People who are naturally curious tend to be pretty creative too. They like the challenge of figuring out new ways of doing things and of finding unique solutions to business problems. They will actually relish the opportunity to innovate by researching and devising new ideas
Curiosity will really drive creativity in your startup - no matter what stage it is at. You’ll really benefit from employees who show a little more ingenuity in their thought processes, who don’t fear problems but who instead embrace them.
2 They’re natural learners
Although a desire to learn is not unique to curious people, it's certainly something that doesn't need to be nurtured or developed. Curious people are never simply content with what they already know, or by the limits or constraints of their job role.
They're naturally keen and committed to go that extra step, to find out more and often go beyond what's expected of them in a bid to satisfy their thirst for knowledge. You won't need to have to persuade a curious employee to undertake a training course or to take on a new challenge - they'll do it because they simply want to keep learning new things.
3 They welcome change
All businesses go through periods of change and for startups that's particularly true, especially in the early stages. As products and services are developed and business models tweaked, change can be an everyday thing in a startup environment.
Curious people tend to flourish in environments like this. They're never happy when things are the “same old same old” and instead, as they are always striving to try new things, if they're not initiating change, they're positively welcoming it!
Since you won't really be able to see exactly how curious someone is by their CV, it's vital to find other ways to suss this out during the recruitment process - like the interview for example.
Interview questions for curiosity
Ask about their learning
You could ask a candidate to tell you about something that they have learned recently. Ask how they approached it? What methods did they use? Did they do this on their own initiative or what motivated them to learn this?
If it's a job-related skill, you could perhaps ask them about how they've implemented this in their current role or perhaps how they plan to.
Find out about their hobbies and interests
If your potential recruit is a graduate, they might not have a lot of work-related experience to draw on, so you might instead be able to find out more about them by asking about their hobbies and interests. Their natural curiosity should become evident by their desire to learn new things and to try out new experiences outside of the work environment.
Give them a task
Another fab way of identifying a candidate’s curiosity is by giving them a short task as part of the interview process or you could perhaps provide them with a work scenario they could potentially face and see how they respond. You should be able to see ingenuity and creativity in how they approach this.
The more curious candidates will also perhaps ask more questions before they begin and when asked to explain their approach or answer, may have taken a very different angle to other candidates.
Note the questions they ask
One of the biggest tell-tale signs of a candidate’s natural curiosity is the questions that they ask you, the hirer. They may perhaps ask a question or two during the interview itself. Or, if you ask that old stalwart of interview questions at the end of the interview, “Do you have any questions for us?” their response can be pretty revealing.
A curious candidate is more likely to ask a question that another candidate may not even have thought of. Their question will tend to be more original and that, in turn, will tell you more about them.
Of course, hiring curious people for your startup is really only the first step - the next job you have is retaining them!
Keeping curious people in your startup
Develop a culture of curiosity
You should strive to create a startup culture where new ideas, innovations and perspectives are not just always sought out, but actively encouraged too. An environment where this is the norm tends to be one that also encourages curiosity.
Ensure that your leadership team is open to this too and committed to making it an integral part of your startup’s working culture. If your hiring managers are themselves naturally curious, all the better!
Encourage learning and development
It’s not enough to pay lip service to this. You should ensure that you continually provide opportunities for your startup employees to learn new things and develop new skills.
The more opportunities you provide for learning, the more you will be helping to keep your employees engaged and committed and you’ll be actively feeding their curiosity too.
Celebrate curiosity
You should actively encourage your startup team to share ideas, collaborate and be creative, thereby providing a space for the curious employee to demonstrate their innovative ideas.
Don’t simply create an environment where rewards are based on performance against targets, reward creativity too. The more you do cultivate the right conditions for curiosity to thrive, the better!
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Who we are
Offering personalised, consultative service, at TableCrowd Talent we’re a specialist recruitment agency with our finger on the pulse of the startup and scaleup scene. We are committed to matching graduates, professionals and C-level executives to exciting startup and scaleup jobs across London, the UK and Europe.
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